1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to hearing aids and more particularly, to automatically modeling binaural shells for hearing aids.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In most humans, hearing impairment occurs in both ears rather than a single ear. As a result, most humans require a hearing aid for both ears in order to compensate for their hearing loss. Hearing aids, however, are typically custom made because most humans have different levels of hearing loss and different inner canal, meatus and/or concha structures.
In order to manufacture a hearing aid or pair thereof, a health care professional takes impressions of a patient's left and right ears, which are duplicates of the contours of the patient's ears, and then forwards these impressions to a hearing aid manufacturer. The hearing aid manufacturer then replicates the impressions into, for example, hearing aid shells so they will fit the patient and, then installs electronic hearing components into the shells thus completing the manufacturing process.
In an effort to streamline the above manufacturing process, several computerized methods of manufacture have been developed. These methods commonly referred to as electronic modeling systems include sundry electronic detailing and modeling procedures, which are used to aid in the manufacture of hearing aid shells. These methods, however, typically manufacture each shell separately and require manual adjustments to the shells thus leading to inconsistencies between the shells and increased production time and cost.